tin shotgun slug? thoughts

Nemesis · Mar 4, 2013

So...i really like the idea of making use of lymans .69 cal black powder mold, but 730 gr is quite a load for a slug. Well, tin has 65% the weight of lead, so in theory casting it with pure tin would yeild a 470 gr round, close to 1oz...but with the size of that big monster...giving you the ability to push it at some pretty mean speeds. Only drawback is each bullet would cost about $1.25...

damifinowfish · Mar 4, 2013

Interesting idea. I would post this question over on the cast boolits forum. They have some great people that are very knowledgeable with lead and lead alloys

wgttgw · Mar 4, 2013

The lee slug mold is $20. I would say it would not take many slugs cast out of tin to pay for the mold. The lee slugs do well and load in a normal shot wad. My lee slug measures .675 as cast and the wad slug combo measures .730. I have no experience with that muzzle loader slug but it would not appear to fit a shot wad and would appear to be too small with out the wad. You would need to build up a load with card wads and then I would suspect the muzzle loader slug would rattle down the barrel when shot.

Nemesis · Mar 4, 2013

wgttgw said:
The lee slug mold is $20. I would say it would not take many slugs cast out of tin to pay for the mold. The lee slugs do well and load in a normal shot wad. My lee slug measures .675 as cast and the wad slug combo measures .730. I have no experience with that muzzle loader slug but it would not appear to fit a shot wad and would appear to be too small with out the wad. You would need to build up a load with card wads and then I would suspect the muzzle loader slug would rattle down the barrel when shot.

Im already loading lymans 525 gr wasp waist slugs, .681 dia..the .69 would still drop right into a winchester wad.

I have 2 lee molds, they work, but the lymans are head and shoulders over them...you pay for it though. The main goal with this isint to just get a 1oz slug, its to get a slug that is twice the size as a 1oz slug but with the same weight.

wgttgw · Mar 4, 2013

That is interesting. Just for my information, what would be the advantage of larger length slug with similar weight and diameter to the lyman or the lee?

Nemesis · Mar 4, 2013

wgttgw said:
That is interesting. Just for my information, what would be the advantage of larger length slug with similar weight and diameter to the lyman or the lee?

More bullet like, so both barrier penetration and target penetration would be improved, the longer slicker profile would yeild a better down range performance, and if the round start to yaw in target it would make one hell of a wound channel vs just a regular foster style slug

atblis · Mar 4, 2013

Longer but with less/equal mass does not necessarily equal more penetration. Sectional density might be a better indicator of penetration.

wgttgw · Mar 4, 2013

Like I said I have no knowledge of the muzzle loader slug in question. I would be interested in seeing the results as I always look for more knowledge and find these type of experiments intriguing.

Not having the mold in question I might be thinking incorrectly. Is it in fact longer than the Lyman sabot slug or the Lee drive key? I would think the hollow base in the lee and Lyman might be a large part of the difference in weight when casted out of the same alloy.

Don't know if it would preform better than the hollow base slugs or not. The way I understand the Lyman and Lee use a weight forward design to stabilize flight. Much like a spear or arrow. With a solid base the weight would be more even throughout the slug and thus not fly correctly. At least out of a smooth bore shotgun. Do you intend to shoot out of a smooth bore or riffle slug barrel ?

When shot trough a riffle slug barrel the drive key engages the wad and caused the slug wad to spin an stabilize flight. The Lyman sabot design compresses and expand to engage the wad (I may be wrong on this because I don't have the mold).

Biggfoot44 · Mar 4, 2013

Interesting , but there are a cpl of *Howevers* .

Pure Tin as a high meltimg temp above most home casting equipment. Even if you did sicciessfully melt and pour a mostly Tin alloy, it will have excessive hardness and brittleness issues.

Having a huge honking slug to penetrate making huge holes is an interesting concept. Likewise having a really slippery slug ( aka high BC by shotgun standards ) for retained vel and long range is an interesting idea.

The bad news is that those two individually interestimg ideas require contradictory aproaches.

For a homemade load w/ big honking slug , cast your .69 with lead, and treat it like a full dia slug. It's not that much smaller than certain brands of Foster style slugs , or a full choke. DIXIE Slugs out of Fla loads a full dia slug weighing a full 2oz , so the concept is within known parameters.

To get a meaningfull increase in BC , you're pretty much going to have to go to a smaller diameter and sabot.Other newer designs have sexier advertising and a bigger promotion budget, but for pure SD , BC , and long range accuraccy it's hard to come close to the Grand Daddy of them all , The Origional BRI ( still loaded and sold under Win brand) .

For that matter while it's greatly fulfilling to experement for it's own sake , as far as terminal performance involving large full cal channels , and extreme penetration it is a very high bar to even come close to the Brenneke.

[ That's presuming that you wish to shoot lengthwise thru a Moose. For average size whitetails there's a lot to be said also for average penetration , and good expansion. ]

wgttgw · Mar 4, 2013

Melting point of pure tin is 450 degrees, pure lead is 621. In my mind there are obstacles to the slug working better than the Lee or Lyman but temperature at least would not be one of them.

http://www.weights-and-measures.com/xcommetalsalt.html

Nemesis · Mar 4, 2013

Were you thinking of Antimony, in regards to the melting and brittle nature? As far as i know, as said above, tin melts very easy and stays right around 6bhn, even water dropping them does nothing to harden them further.

I do agree that there are far better ways to get a better bc and down range effect with a shotgun, however the idea of a tin slug is really quite interesting to me...i would be curious to see how well it would work to jacking up the velocity of standard slugs as well...a 1oz slug would only be like 300 grains cast with tin, could really start to push the velocities quite high.

Dixie makes some cool loads...but i look at them as big game loads...somethin you fire a few times and youre done. The recoil their loads have is fun, but punishing. I tend to try and make better combaf loads.

tin shotgun slug? thoughts

The #1 community for Gun Owners of the Northeast

Member Benefits:

Nemesis

Russian Grizzly Adams

damifinowfish

Ultimate Member

wgttgw

Active Member

Nemesis

Russian Grizzly Adams

wgttgw

Active Member

Nemesis

Russian Grizzly Adams

atblis

Ultimate Member

wgttgw

Active Member

Biggfoot44

Ultimate Member

wgttgw

Active Member

Nemesis

Russian Grizzly Adams

Users who are viewing this thread

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Latest threads

Forum statistics

Share this page